rigatoni with roasted cauliflower and asiago cheese

• 1 pound rigatoni
• 1 head of cauliflower, cut into bite sized pieces
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
• asiago cheese
• bread crumbs
• fresh curly parsley, chopped fine

Combine cauliflower and garlic with a generous amount of olive oil, roast for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, stirring occasionally. Boil rigatoni in salted water until just done. Add breadcrumbs and parsley to cauliflower, season with kosher salt and fresh pepper, stirring in more olive oil as needed. Continue cooking until pasta is done. Place pasta on plate, sprinkle asiago cheese on top, drizzle with good quality olive oil and top with cauliflower mixture.

The dish: If you're a faithful red room reader (which I think you might be because I'm pretty sure it's only Kim and I reading this) you know my feelings on olive oil: cook with really cheap stuff and drizzle with great stuff. Cauliflower is one of those super veggies that has all kinds of good things going on and this was an easy way to enjoy it. If you want to make it a little healthier you can omit the breadcrumbs, but they really added a nice touch.

rice with chicken, cashews and gloden raisins

• 2 cups white rice, cooked
• 1/4 cup chicken, torn into bite sized pieces
• 1/4 cup halved cashews
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• fresh curly parsley, chopped
• Mrs. Dash seasoning

Combine first five ingredients. We used leftover chicken and we nuked it in a little chicken stock because we had some of that left over. Season to taste with Mrs. Dash and fresh ground pepper and kosher salt.

The dish: Kim really believes that she can't cook, which is not the case, and as a result she's a little pensive in the red room. I was working late and we had some leftover chicken so we planned on her putting this dish together and it came out great- the mix of flavors really worked. We normally just buy rice from the local Chinese place, but she used Uncle Ben's enriched boil in the bag and the texture was perfect. I enjoyed it cold the next day for lunch- this was a great way to stretch a little left over chicken.

green beans almondine

• 1 pound fresh green beans, caps snapped off
• sliced almonds, unseasoned
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 lemon

Boil green beans in large pot for 4 minutes or until cooked but still crisp. Drain and rinse with cold water (to stop them from cooking further). Saute almonds in butter for three minutes over medium high flame. Add green beans, squeeze juice of lemon over mixture, and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

The dish: Two keys here: 1. Make sure that the green beans are cooked, but not too much. You want them to be firm with a snap and a bright green color. 2. As always, fresh lemon juice is imperative. That bottle in the fridge is OK for emergencies or when baked into a dish with many ingredients, but with so little going on in this dish you want to make sure that each component shines. No matter what the label says, that stuff in the bottle is not made with real lemons, it's made with some crazy chemicals in a plant along the Jersey turnpike that looks like it should be producing something much different than food flavorings.

mashed potatoes with leeks and thyme

• 3 pounds potatoes, scrubbed and peeled
• 4oz fat free sour cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• fresh thyme
• 1 large leek

Slice potatoes and boil until tender in salted water, drain. Chop thyme and white section of leek finely, saute in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil for 5 minutes over medium flame, stirring occasionally. In large bowl combine cooked potatoes with leeks and thyme and add remainder of ingredients. If you like very smooth whipped potatoes beat with a hand or stand mixer, otherwise a spoon works just fine. Once mixture is at your desired consistency, season to taste with kosher salt and serve.

The dish: Potatoes are a great canvas to run with and add pretty much anything you can dream of. The thyme and leek combo worked well, but I've added all kinds of crazy things to the mix. You can omit the sour cream and add pretty much any creamy dairy that suits you; more milk, heavy cream, butter, buttermilk or even yogurt if you get down with the active cultures. I made this mix a little creamier than I would have normally, but I wasn't sure when we'd be eating and as with pretty much everything but our own bodies mashed potatoes tend to firm up as they sit around.

chicken with mushroom and parsley gravy

• 4 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms, I used baby bellas
• gravy master
• wondra flour
• fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Season chicken with kosher salt and fresh pepper. Add swirl of olive oil to a hot skillet (cast iron works best) and cook chicken through, about 4 minutes each side. Once cooked, place chicken on plate loosely tented with tin foil. Add stock to skillet and reduce heat to medium high stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, after 3 minutes add mushrooms and simmer for 5 minutes. Add two dashes gravy master to the mix and whisk in two healthy shakes of the wondra. Add parsley and more flour as needed. Turn off heat and continue whisking until gravy is correct consistency, spoon over warmed chicken and serve.

The dish: I read an article in the Wall Street Journal awhile back about a chef at some ridiculous restaurant in NY or LA or Tokyo or some such place where a meal probably cost more than most of the cars I've owned in my life, and he had a confession: every sauce and gravy he makes begins with a dash or two of gravy master. He said that he couldn't get the right color or flavor without it. I went right out and bought some and I'll be damned if my next batch of gravy I made wasn't my best. I became a huge proponent of the stuff and Kim even got me a gravy master t-shirt, don't ask me where, she has her sources. The other half of good gravy is using wondra flour, not as exciting as the master but it won't clump.

happy husband

• fresh baby spinach, rinsed
• 1 large egg
• sausage patty
• roll or bagel

Cook sausage patty (our favorite is Morningstar Farms meatless patties, we're carnivores and love these things- great flavor with almost no grease), place on bread. Fry egg to your liking, we do over hard. Place egg on patty and top with spinach, letting the heat from the sandwich slightly wilt the leaves.

The dish: In addition to my lovely wife's full time gig as a math teacher in a middle school, she also moonlights as a college professor once a week and teaches two Spin classes a week at our local gym. Yes, you read that right- three jobs, I tell her one more and I can be a kept man. She has a real passion for teaching Spin and I love being part of her Monday evening class, but her Saturday morning class begins at 7:15AM and I just feel like that thin line between Friday night and Saturday morning is almost non-existent at that hour. She also makes it too easy not to go to her class, bringing me the paper and breakfast in bed when she returns. She's experimented with all different variations on the breakfast sandwich theme, and this one's the winner- it's satisfying without being greasy and it's a great way to begin the day.

German potato salad

• 5 pounds red potatoes
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup sugar
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• dried mustard
• kosher salt
• 5 strips bacon, cooked and chopped
• 1 large white onion, diced

Peel potatoes about 80% (I like to leave some skin on, but not too much) and cut into similar bite sized pieces. In bottom of crock pot whisk together vinegar and sugar with a generous shake of dried mustard. Add potatoes, bacon and onion to pot, stir and season with salt. Cook on high for two hours, then cook on low for 8-10 hours. Add parsley in last 20 minutes of cooking. Serve warm.

The dish: Keeping with the "you can cook anything in a crock pot" theme comes this warm potato salad. This was cooked in my crock pot which is about 5 years old. Depending on the age of yours you may need to adjust cooking times slightly. This dish is best done the first time while you're home and can keep an eye on things, making sure the potatoes cook. As you can see in the picture I got cocky and went out for the afternoon and came home to slightly mashed potato salad, no big deal though. I advise against using any slow cooker that's not a real Rival Crock Pot, many cheaper knock offs cook unevenly and don't seal as nicely. There are a few higher end cookers from companies like Kitchen Aid, but I can't see dropping $100 on something that's an imitation of the $40 namesake.